2018-12-21

Global Carbon Dioxide Emissions: China Is The World's Worst Polluter

As industrialization and globalization picked up over the past four decades, so has greenhouse gas emissions. China’s share of global carbon dioxide emissions has ballooned from 8 percent of the world’s total in 1980 to 52 percent of the world’s total in 2017.

"In 2008, everyone knew Beijing was polluted, but we didn't know how much. That year, the US Embassy in Beijing installed a rooftop air-quality monitor that cost the team about as much as a nice car. The device began automatically tweeting out data every hour to inform US citizens of the pollution’s severity @beijingair [embed below]."